Martin Hammond 🔸🇺🇦

Londoner. Now in Sutton. I tend to speak my mind. All views are my own (but retweets are not endorsement). Pro-EU. #RefugeesWelcome 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[The okayest poster there is @ok_post_guy]

RFK Jr saying he never knew anybody who was autistic as a kid is particularly galling considering his aunt Eunice founded a day camp for kids with autism in 1962 and founded the Special Olympics in 1968

Just a completely dishonest POS

[julie k. brown @jkbjournalist]

Breaking: Sources for Miami Herald/McClatchy confirm that the Ethics Report is "highly damaging" -- the report could be leaked today. @miamiherald

[Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall]

Of the 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, seven were passed.

Three didn't pass: Florida, Nebraska and North Dakota.

A clear majority supported abortion rights in Florida but it didn't clear the 60% threshold. This means the closest states where Floridian women can obtain an abortion are North Carolina and Virginia, hundreds of miles away.

The state's six week abortion ban is transforming health care in the state with heartbreaking, perverse and tragic outcomes in every direction. Now, as we reported last Friday, the situation is likely to get worse still 👇

[60 Minutes @60Minutes]

“We paid for the abortion in cash so that there wasn't a paper trail of our Texas credit cards paying for an abortion,” says Dani Mathisen. At 20 weeks pregnant, she learned her baby girl had a lethal condition, and was forced to leave the state to get care.

[Angry Staffer @Angry_Staffer]

They pre-selected the winners?

In other words, the entire thing was bullshit. They misled the American people and likely broke the law doing it

[Robert Peston @Peston]

There seems to be significant faux outrage from Tory leadership candidates Cleverly and Tugendhat about the Starmer government’s transfer of the Chagos islands to Mauritius.

Official sources tell me the transfer would have happened in materially the same
way at roughly the same time if Sunak had somehow won the election.

The point is that the transfer was being negotiated on the recent Tory government’s watch - including by Cleverly as foreign secretary and then by Cameron - and the deadline was in effect set by Washington.

I am told that President Biden wanted the deal done before the 5 November presidential election. Biden wanted certainty about the future of the US military base on the Chagossian island of Diego Garcia, just in case Donald Trump were to win the election.

For confirmation that the deal was clinched on a timetable and in a style to suit the US administration, see Biden’s statement that “it is a clear demonstration that through diplomacy and partnership, countries can overcome longstanding historical challenges to reach peaceful and mutually beneficial outcomes”.

Biden pointed out that the agreement between the UK and Mauritius meant the US had secured “the effective operation of the joint [military] facility on Diego Garcia into the next century.”

It is therefore curious Tugendhat should describe the transfer as “leaving our allies” exposed when the UK’s most important ally, America, has welcomed it.

And Cleverly’s denigration of Starmer as “weak, weak, weak” for formalising it seems eccentric when the negotiations with Mauritius were in full swing when he was in the cabinet.

As for Liz Truss’s assertion that Boris Johnson is to blame, I am told that Johnson was the last PM to wholly oppose giving up sovereignty over Chagos, and that the talks did not start properly till she was PM.

If anyone in the Tory party wants to know the nitty gritty of all this, possibly they could ask for an introduction from the former minister Lord Frost - because his spouse Harriet Matthews has been the lead official negotiator for the foreign office on the Chagos treaty with Mauritius.

[Robert Hutton @RobDotHutton]

The best bits in the Boris Johnson memoirs are the unintentional revelations. Here, we learn that the Queen read government briefings, and he didn't.

[Paul Brand @PaulBrandITV]

Sayeeda Warsi was once celebrated by her party for proving the Conservatives could be a modern, inclusive party. Her departure shows how far she feels it has drifted since the Cameron era.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: The Speaker's Office and Parliament's security team have 'no recollection' of telling Nigel Farage he shouldn't hold in-person surgeries in Clacton

Farage said earlier he was advised not to hold these surgeries due to safety concerns

h/t @RichardVaughan1 & @PA

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

Absolutely incredible!

Great Britain have finished second in the medal table at the #Paralympics 🏆

#Paris2024

[The Tennis Letter @TheTennisLetter]

Ugly moment in the Putintseva vs Paolini match at the US Open.

The ball girl tries tossing the ball and Yulia watches it bounce on the ground without moving.

So many ball kids look up to these athletes. Let's try to treat them kinder.

(via @MerThomp)

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Sir Anthony Seldon's new biography claims that Liz Truss considered stopping cancer treatment on the NHS to fill the financial blackhole

[@Independent]

[Sara Wahedi @SaraWahedi]

Next time you read a book in the park as a woman, remember it’s now a privilege.

In Afghanistan, you can’t read a book. In public. As a woman.

The Handmaid’s Tale in 2024.

[British Electoral Politics @electpoliticsuk]

NEW:

Scottish Conservative leadership contender Murdo Fraser is still opposed to gay marriage after voting against it 10 years ago.

He also voted against gay adoption in 2006 and against same-sex civil partnerships in 2004.

[Metropolitan Police @metpoliceuk]

This bus driver was simply doing his job when he was racially abused and spat at.

Today, Michael Mongan pleaded guilty at court following a rapid investigation by @MPSRTPC officers.

📰 | Read more at https://t.co/CTFK7sczsl

[Metropolitan Police @metpoliceuk]

ℹ️ | We are seeing lots of videos being shared online that were filmed at previous protests or during previous incidents.

There has been no disorder in London this weekend and the videos are likely being shared to mislead or to fuel tension.

[Open Britain @OpenBritainHQ]

On behalf of his constituents in Clacton, where’s Nigel???

[Nick Lowles @lowles_nick]

Unbelievable, but sadly quite believable

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: James Nelson, 19, is the first rioter to be jailed

He pleaded guilty at Manchester Magistrates' Court to causing criminal damage during the disorder in Bolton on Sunday and has been jailed for two months

[Martin Hammond 🔸🇺🇦 @MartinHCroydon]

For the record, loved it.

Well done, Paris.

Plus to see Celine Dion back in action - what an ending. ❤️❤️❤️

#OpeningCeremony
#Paris
#OlympicGames